Even in the age of high-capacity SSD‘s Samsung belives in the hard drive based microdrive. The newly announced A1 features 30GB and 40GB capacities, a 3600rpm rotation speed, 2MB buffer memory, and a greatly increased shock resistance of 650G’s (650 times the gravity of a stationary object on earth).

As for how they managed to cram 40GB of storage onto a 1” platter, well, that just boggles the minds of the editors here at Gear Live. We expect to see a bevy of new handhelds, digital audio players, and cameras with built in storage with room to grow coming in 2008.

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Audi has decided to include a mobile phone as part of its A1 Metroproject Quattro concept hybrid. The handheld acts as a phone, video and audio player, and supports both 3G UMTS and WiFi technology. Before sliding it into it’s slot on the dashboard, it will also start your car, unlock it by remote, and heat it up before you are forced out in the cold.

There’s more. The A1 will alert you by snapping an image on digicam in the car if someone likes your new purchase as much as you do and decides to borrow it. If that occurs, it will track the thief’s wild ride by GPS. We would just be happy to use that feature to let us know where we parked before the lot got overcrowded with hordes of Holiday shoppers.